


The Big Black Horse

by mcfair_58



Category: Bonanza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:02:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27479260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcfair_58/pseuds/mcfair_58
Summary: No one understands 4 year old Little Joe's aversion to the statue of a black horse on the sofa table.  Big brother Adam comes to the rescue.
Kudos: 4





	The Big Black Horse

The Big Black Horse

He was ambling.  
Ambling.  
Now, that wasn’t something he was normally prone to do, but at the moment it seemed like the only thing to do.  
How could a place feel so familiar and…unfamiliar?  
Twenty-one year old Adam Cartwright paused with his hand on the back of the French settee his late step-mother had imported to Nevada from New Orleans and sighed. Four years. He’d been gone four years.  
He’d been back one day and it seemed a whole different world.  
He supposed the reason he was clinging to the settee was that it was an anchor in a seas of changes. Hoss was a teenager, almost a man. Little Joe…. Adam sighed as he ran a hand along the back of his neck. Little Joe was still little, but that was about the only thing that was the same. Where he’d left behind a cherubic if mischievous boy with a bright smile and infectious laugh who loved to sit on his lap and cuddle, and who ran to him whenever he had a problem or was afraid, he’d come home to a stubborn intractable pre-pubescent child who apparently wanted nothing to do with the older brother he thought had deserted him.  
And on top of that, the house, well, it just didn’t feel like home. Gone were the graceful touches Marie had brought: the bountiful baskets and bouquets of flowers; the silk scarves and fine wool throws worked in a violent array of colors and thrown over nearly every open space.  
The whole place reeked of masculinity.  
His lush blue velvet chair, which had been a gift from Marie, remained, but Pa had a new one. The elegant upholstered winged back chair with its pattern of burgundy and pink stripes had given way to one made of a red leather nearly burnished black. Adam’s gaze dropped to the heavy – and admittedly clunky – table made of wood that now butted up against the fire. Once upon a time there had been a delicate Chippendale piece there, adorned with a crystal bowl laden with bursting blossoms.  
No more.  
The bowl was treenware now – also cut from one of their ponderosa pines – and it was filled with ‘useful’ apples.  
As he released his grip on the settee, the black-haired man backed up and looked at the sofa table that butted up against the back of the settee. It’s dull and meager occupants were one of the first things he’d noticed when he walked in the door. There was a clock along with a few books. The rampant black horse, rearing proudly and proclaiming the spirit of the West was gone. Not missing – gone. He’d searched all over and couldn’t find hide nor hair. In desperation, he’d asked Hop Sing about it. All he got was a shake of the Asian man’s head. Even Hoss was less than forthcoming. The big teen told him Pa took it down one day and he’d never asked where it went.  
Who cared about an old black horse statue anyway?  
Adam spun to rest his hip on the settee. Now, he wasn’t a man to pry, but he was a man with a need to understand. That big lack horse had meant a lot to two of the people still in this house – Pa and Little Joe. On his step-mother’s last birthday – the year her Petit Joseph turned four – the pair of them had presented it to her. Marie loved big black horses. No one knew why exactly and she never really said, but there was something about their sleek ebon coats and slightly mysterious natures that intrigued her. Pa brought a catalog back from one of his visits to Stockton. He and Little Joe poured over it for hours before choosing the perfect horse figure. Little Joe liked big black ones too.  
Which made him wonder even more where the dang thing had gone – and why.

Adam’s answer came that night at three in the morning when he was awakened by a sound such as he had never heard.  
It started as a low moan and built like one of Mozart’s arias, crescendoing until it turned into a high-pitched wail that split the night and brought him bolt upright in his bed. It took him a moment, but he clambered out of bed and opened his door to the sight of his father – his silver hair askew, his garnet robe haphazardly tossed on and tied wrong – heading for Little Joe’s room. Pa gave him a look somewhere between exasperation and understanding and told him to go back to bed.  
Later that morning, when he and Hoss were working in the tack room together, the big teen explained what it was all about. It seemed Little Joe had been having nightmares ever since Marie died. Most of them had to do with a big black horse, though their brother either didn’t know or wouldn’t say what and why they scared him. Joe had gotten to the point where every time he passed the big black horse statue in the great room he’d start to shake and cry. Pa loved that statue, but he loved his little boy more, and so – one day – the older man had taken it down and that had been that.  
Hoss suspected the horse was in their father’s room in the wooden chest that contained Marie’s other things.  
Now, he wasn’t a father, but it seemed to him that hiding that horse was the wrong thing to do. Pa had taught them all to face up to their fears in order to conquer them. So, the next time Little Joe began to moan and then wail and then scream in the middle of the night, he convinced the older man to let him wake the little boy up and talk to him.  
In truth, it didn’t take much convincing.

Adam quietly closed the door behind him and approached his brother’s bed. He stood for a moment watching the little boy pitch and toss, considering how best to wake him, and then sat down with some force beside him, making the bed jiggle.  
It didn’t work.  
Little Joe was locked so deeply in his nightmare that did nothing he did worked – talking quietly to him, gently shaking his shoulder; even more gently slapping his cheek. So, finally – and in trepidation of his life – he took hold of the little boy and boldly called his name. Pa had warned him, so he caught both arms and held them fast.  
A black eye was not something he wanted to sport to church on his first Sunday home.  
“Joseph Francis Cartwright! It’s Adam. You’re having a nightmare. Wake up, Joe! Wake up now!”  
Joe stiffened in his grasp and his eyes shot open.  
“Don’t let it get me!” he wailed.  
Adam’s grip tightened. “It won’t buddy. I won’t let it.”  
The little boy’s wild gaze shot to him. He was breathing hard. “Pro…promise?”  
“Uh huh.”  
Joe stared at him for several heartbeats and then his head went down. He drew in several deep breaths, fighting to still his racing heart.  
Finally, in a small and terrible voice he said, “You can go now.”  
Adam released him and leaned back. “I could, but I won’t.”  
Joe’s eyes flicked to his face. “How come?”  
“I asked Pa if I could come and wake you, because I have a message for you and I think it might help. I haven’t had a chance to give it to you yet since you’ve been….” He cleared his throat as he decided just how not to incite his youngest sibling’s ire. “Well, we haven’t seen much of one another, I’ve been so busy.” Joe was frowning at him. “You want to know what it is, don’t you, buddy?”  
The look out of his brother’s great green eyes was so intense. It was as if Joe was trying to discern the stuff of his soul. In the end, his little brother swiped a sleeve under his snotty nose and shrugged.  
“So, what’s the message?”  
He drew a breath. Here goes.  
“It’s from Ma.”  
He regretted it now. He’d seldom called Marie ‘Ma’, though Hoss had. Little Joe used to say ‘Mama’, but he was older now and so he figured ‘Ma’ would work.  
The little boy turned to look out the window. “She’s dead,” he said, his voice trembling. “She can’t tell you nothin’.”  
At five Little Joe had been sure Marie would walk through the front door any minute, even after he’d seen her laid to rest. It seemed, at ten, that he had lost that absurd if wonderful hope.  
“She gave me the message before she died.”  
Little Joe Cartwright was a stubborn little cuss. He struggled with his self-imposed pride and his need to know.  
Needing to know won out.  
As he knew it would.  
“What was it?”  
“She wanted to let you know why she loved big black horses.”  
His brother’s jaw tightened. Tears entered his eyes. “No, she didn’t.”  
“Yes. She did.” Adam rose and walked to the window. What he was about to tell his brother was true, though Marie had left no message. He stared for a moment at the black sky with its brilliant stars, and then spoke, his voice hushed. “The night you were born – just like tonight – there was no moon. You couldn’t see anything outside this window. Ma told me she had to look at something while she labored, so she looked out the window. It was a blustery night, so the curtains were rippling and their movements made her think of a horse’s flowing mane. “ Adam looked up. “She said at first everything was black as pitch, but then – suddenly – a single star shone in the sky. Ma said it looked like an eye – and it winked at her.”  
“I think I seen that star, Adam,” Little Joe said.  
“I bet you have,” Adam said as he returned to his seat beside his brother. “Ma said she planted her eyes on those curtains and that star and dreamed she was riding a big black horse, and it helped her to deal with the pain.”  
Joe looked horrified. “I caused Mama pain?”  
“Every woman has pain with childbirth, Joe. That had nothing to do with you,” he assured the little boy. “No, Joe, you brought Marie joy – the same kind of joy she felt when she was riding full-tilt on her big black horse. Ma said it was a kind of freedom – like flying.”  
Joe’s lips trembled. “Mama died ‘cause of that horse.”  
“Little Joe,” Adam covered his brother’s small hand with his own, “no she didn’t. “Ma died because it was her time. She loved you and she loved life, and she loved big black horses and we should celebrate all three. “  
Adam held out his hand as he rose.  
“What?”  
“Come with me, Joe.” He placed his other hand on the boy’s shoulder and directed him to the window. Leaning in over Joe’s curly head, Adam pointed as he spoke. “There. Do you see it? There’s the star and it’s winking at us, just like it did Ma. I bet Ma is watching us right now, and she’s smiling.”  
Joe’s soft ‘yeah’ was hushed; almost reverential.  
“Your Mama’s right there, Little Joe. She’s with that big black beauty and she’s at peace.”

Adam Cartwright sat before the fire. He looked up from his book when his father huffed. He’d tried to sleep after waking Little Joe, but mood and memory had prevented it. Instead he had come down before the sun was up to his favorite chair and set to thinking, and at last, to reading.  
“What’s that doing here?” Pa asked as he eyed the statue of the rampaging horse, which once again reared proudly behind the settee.  
“It’s where it belongs, Pa,” he said as he put his book down on the massive fireside table and rose.  
Pa’s dubious gaze went to the stair. “But your brother….”  
Adam smiled. “Joe was the one who insisted we dig it out of the chest and return it to its rightful place.”  
His father did not seem convinced. “Joseph insisted…?”  
“I sure did, Pa!” a cheerful voice called as Little Joe bounded down the stairs two at a time, tripping but righting himself quickly as he reached the bottom. “Ain’t it beautiful?”  
“Young man!” Pa exclaimed. “If I have told you once, I have told you a hundred times not to fly down that staircase. You’ll break your –” Pa stopped. He paled and dropped his head.  
Little Joe stared at him for a moment and then walked over to the older man and took his hand.  
“I’m not Mama, Pa,” the little boy said softly.  
Pa ran a hand through his brother’s unruly curls. “I know you’re not, son. I just….”  
“Did you yell at Mama and tell her not to race her horse so fast?”  
Their father sighed. “A thousand times.”  
“So, that means nine hundred and ninety-nine times she was okay. Right?”  
Adam stifled his amusement at the ten-year-old’s sudden wisdom.  
Pa looked perplexed.  
“Right….”  
“So….I’ve only run down the stairs – maybe – a hundred. I got a lot of yellin’ to go.”  
A little smile lifted the edge of their father’s upper lip.  
“Pa?”  
“Yes, Little Joe?”  
“There wasn’t nothin’ you or I could have done. Mama died because it was her time.” The little boy looked over his shoulder at him. “Adam said so and Adam’s always right, isn’t he?”  
The black-haired man blinked. Lord! How he wished he had that in writing!  
Somehow, he knew he was going to have need of it later.  
Pa was almost laughing now. “I suppose he is.”  
“So for nine hundred and ninety-nine days Mama was happy ‘cause she rode her big black horse fast and felt the wind in her hair. And she’s happy now ‘cause she’s up in Heaven riding it for eternity where she can’t get hurt no more. You and me, we gotta…forgot about that one bad day and think about all the others.”  
Pa was staring at the little boy. It took him a moment to speak. “So, I suppose you think that means I should let you dash down the stairs like a demon because it makes you happy?”  
Joe wrinkled his nose as he thought about it. Then he nodded.  
The sound of the affectionate smack to his brother’s backside remained long after the little boy had skedaddled out the door.  
Pa watched Joe’s retreating back for a moment and then returned to staring at the statue of the black horse.  
After a moment he looked up and said, “Thank you, Adam.”  
“For what? Giving my little brother a license to be reckless?”  
The older man laid a hand on the cloth that adorned the horse’s back. “No. For reminding me that we have to live life out of the shadow of death. This horse, it…. I was only too happy to commit it and what it represented to the darkness. “  
“Like you tried to do with Marie?”  
Pa’s look was sharp. “I suppose I have to admit that, don’t I?”  
Adam’s brows peaked. “And the reason why would be?”  
The older man laughed out-loud as he headed for his office.  
“You heard your brother say it. Adam Cartwright is always right.”  
**********  
END


End file.
